A 37-year-old man from Edmonton is facing fraud and extortion charges against him after a local business network was allegedly hacked by him.

The police said in a release that they had received a report over the alleged hacking of their IT infrastructure in July 2017. And believe that the suspect infiltrated the company’s IT Network and quite successfully took control over their email and smartphone servers and demanded payment in bitcoins in order to keep any further harm to the business.

The EPS Cyber Crime Investigations Unit investigated the case further and managed to identify the alleged suspect successfully.

The police postulate that the same man is responsible for hacking the networks of no less than four other Edmonton-based companies.

“Once the networks were accessed, the suspect targeted financial data, including online store accounts and email accounts, from the companies as well as the employees.” Says, Const. Phil Hawkins.

Including moreover, he clarified that the type of intrusion that occurred in this case, which resulted in a momentous loss to the business, including the time and resources has affected the business in such a way that it suffered an estimated $1.5 million in combined damages.

The 37-year-old Jeffrey Johnston, therefore, is charged with 18 criminal offences including, three counts each dealing with mischief in relation to computer data, two each of fraudulently obtaining computer service, along with mischief related to data and unauthorized use of computer services and not to mention single counts of theft over $5,000.